True to his first two years of life, he is joy.  He’ll be a glass is half full kind of guy.  Heck, I think he’s beyond glass is half full.  He’ll just joyfully celebrate that there is water and drink up!

He’s  a caretaker.  As lover of animals, he’s got a predictable gentle touch and a sweet, soft voice reserved for all things furry.  His favorite books feature horses and kittens.  He’ll turn to the same page over and over.  The page with the horses running in the snow to the farmer bringing them fresh hay.

He’s an adventurer.  Always on the look out for a high climb, a big jump, or a fast slide.  There’s little need for worry though.  He knows his limits pretty well and I can trust him to heed my warnings.   He’s a sensible adventurer.  I love that about him.

We are relishing these fleeting years: I love to steel glimpses of him sleeping, his bum in the air.  As we sit down to dinner, he extends his hands to family, and smiles as we say the meal blessing.  A few minutes into the meal he’ll grab hands again, ready for another blessing.  Sometimes we have five or six blessings.  He loves to caress my face to tell me he loves me – no words needed.  He speaks so clearly with his eyes and hands.  And he sings.  Oh how he sings!

He is joy.  Pure and simple.

Happy Birthday Little Berg.

There are so many places we have called home.  Each one conjures memories of a time in each boy’s life.  Time is frozen, in a sense, in the places we have left.  G-man will forever be a babe in a sling in Edwards and a fire fighter at Eagle Rock; E-man a chicken-loving four-year-old in Taos and a backhoe-obsessed boy who sings when he talks in Edwards, and B-boy will forever be a wandering toddler at Eagle Rock and a playground daredevil in Louisville. I guess we grown ups are a bit frozen in those places, too.  Or maybe those places are a bit frozen in us.  Either way, it’s nice.

But, I do wonder how it will feel to look back in time from a single place.  It’ll be a while before we get there.  It will simply take time (and not moving!) to look back at years already lived in one place while still standing in that same place.  I look forward to experiencing that one day.  It’s been a while.

bullfrogs and tadpoles

wild plums and crab apples

a red tree against the morning sky

bike rides to the library

weekends that are entirely ours

crunchy leaves

lots of crunchy leaves

crunchy leaves that don’t fall from trees until October!

evenings that are entirely ours

playgrounds we can walk to

brothers to catch and guide at the playground

cattails and blackbirds

big fat squirrels

dog parks

climbing trees

summer in the fall

big snows that melt

Our life so beautifully mirrored in the trees: hints of color foretelling the changes to come.

We’ve said some painful goodbyes to beloved spaces in this last month.  I had hoped to share my gratitude for the experiences offered by our borrowed home at Eagle Rock.  But words weren’t right.  The teachings of a place so deep and vast will stay with us in the crevices of our souls, and that is where they belong.  It would be a disservice to try to characterize something so great with my small words.  It would like taking a river, wrapping it in shiny paper, and putting  a bow on top.

So here we are in a new place with a slow fall and bullfrogs.  Paved streets and playgrounds.  Wild plums and green grass.  Earned wisdom and new dreams.

While I needed to honor this important time in our life, that’s all the breath I can give it for now.  Time to tuck away the heaviness of learning what we love by leaving and step out anew to the freshness of living today.

I’ll be back soon.

FRENCH TOAST scribbled hastily over a grocery list written carefully in cursive.

Those were the words I left my husband with — an idea planted for the morning meal accompanied by a skillet of frozen strawberries as inspiration — as I walked out the door to drink my coffee in the meadow watching the sun rise, hoping to return to cheer and peace.

I will look back at these mornings and weep as I remember their richness: the sleepy eyes, the pajama hair, the greetings of innocent voices, the screams of hunger, the bodies thrown on the floor when the perfection of dreams is not met — when there is porridge instead of pancakes.

The early hours are so fragile: a time between two worlds, when the littlest amongst us require such careful ushering from one world to the next, the reality of morning perhaps more difficult for those who live partially in their dreams all day.

It is a time filled with hope, delicate hope, hope we can hold onto or exchange for despair. I’ve tried both; the latter is easier. Some days I hold onto hope.  I smile and sooth; I keep moving through the morning thinking, thinking, thinking I am grateful for this gift of another day.

Perhaps these are the most important moments of our lives: when we choose to hold onto hope in the space between dreams and reality.  (And we get to practice every single day.)

I will look back at FRENCH TOAST scribbled hastily over a grocery list written carefully in cursive and remember these mornings, these difficult mornings, as some of the best moments of my life.

May the world never tame him.

A pile of knitting needles, a handful of pebbles, a soft bunny, a fly, a spool of thread, a cup, a worm, a fresh picked juniper berry, a ball — all as great as the entire universe.  The entire world is reflected in his eyes.  Can’t we pause here, for just a little longer?

Mommy: Hmm…a botanist.

G: What are you going to be when you grow up, Daddy?

Daddy: A musician.

G: Are they good guys or bad guys?

Note: Sharpie markers can be used as a replacement for eye black as well as darkening hand and face skin so you can look like your favorite baseball player.